Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Moviestopped: Knocking on Death's Door

Less awkward than anticipated at least! Today's Film is Knocking on Death's Door, the 2nd Film in the set of Corman 'Produced' Ghost Films. At this point, his name was just on the checks, so lets not hold this against him. The Plot involves a young Couple moving into a Haunted House to find out its secrets. It is your typical stuff- moving objects, weird voices and things in the mirror. Things get more dramatic as the Couple's personal life continues to interfere. Is the kindly Doctor up to anything? It is David Carradine, so guess. This is all pretty standard stuff, but I'll try to spread this out to full-length. Come for the Ghosts, stay for the bickering. To see how this turns out, read on...

In a dark opening, 2 Cops check on a missing lady, see her dead and...

This pretty lazy effect. It kills one of the Cops with the Axe he left lying around leading to...a 20 year time jump.

Our Heroes have just gotten married, which is the perfect time for their Professor/Boss to...give them an assignment?

No, really.

They proceed to buy (what?!?) the murder House from the beginning to study it from the inside for g-g-g-ghosts.

When things get physical with one of the Ghosts, they see the local Doctor- Carradine. He sure is nice and totally not the bad guy.

The new-Wife tries to communicate with the Ghost, although there is a mix of reactions, implying multiple Ghosts.

Skipping past all of the bitching and the 'Wife used to screw the Professor' filler, we learn that a kid was killed in this House by his Dad. Guess who that is.

He tries to kill our Heroine (who is pregnant BTW), but she lives. In typical fashion, the Ghost shows up to make him crash his car.

Now that the Ghost has killed his Dad (making him a Ghost too, right?), it can finally find peace in Heaven with Mom (or something). Hurray for revenge. The End.

Sometimes dead is better. Wrong franchise, I know. In any event, this one is...just kind of there. The core part of the Story- the weird stuff happening with the Ghost in the House- isn't bad. The Actors just don't have much to work with. Their basic motivation: bicker. They argue ALOT in this Film. I wish that they could have done almost anything else, as it really pulled me out of the Film. I just didn't care much about them after a while, which is kind of important for a Film like this. With this problem, the Film just kind of dragged on for me. There are good moments throughout, but good luck keeping your interest. On the plus side, Carradine doesn't appear for 20 minutes and die in this Film. Knocking on Death's Door is that bad mix of generic Presentation, bad Filler and only so-so Acting throughout. Take us away, Extra who may or may not be a Child Molester...

Next up, more Moviestop salvage work. This time, it is a Film I've actually meant to get around to for years. Stay tuned...